


Memory

by catty_the_spy



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Discussion of Assisted Suicide, F/M, Gen, Memory Loss, Sexual Situations, terminal illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-28
Updated: 2011-10-27
Packaged: 2017-11-22 14:30:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/610840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catty_the_spy/pseuds/catty_the_spy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She'll have to learn to live with it, for however long she has left.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Memories

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted as two seperate pieces. Combined into one when posted here.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She'll forget this later.

“Something wrong?” Scotty asks. Nyota looks up. “You haven’t touched your drink.”

Chekov is looking at her too. “Are you feeling well?”

Nyota _does not_ flinch. She picks up her drink, but doesn’t take a sip. Normally she likes drinking, but this might have been a bad idea. She can’t bear to get tipsy right now; maybe not ever again.

Scotty puts his hand on her shoulder. The concern in his eyes is painful. She opens her mouth to lie, stops, puts down her drink.

“I talked to McCoy today.”

“Is it about your headaches?” Chekov says. His eyes are wide and very earnest. He’s nineteen now, but he still looks like a baby to her.

She nods. “He ran some tests last time, and, uh….” She hates herself for hesitating; this isn’t like her. “He says I have….”

Neither of them says anything, just watching her.

“It’s a degenerative brain condition,” she spits out, finally. “He doesn’t know if he’ll be able to do anything. He’s gonna try for one of those patented McCoy miracles, but I’m not holding my breath.”

“Shit,” Scotty says. Chekov’s very pale.

Nyota doesn’t cry – she’s done her crying already, in Sickbay. Instead, she pushes her drink at Scotty, who knocks it back.

“What are you going to do?” Chekov says softly.

Nyota shrugs. “I’ll work for as long as I can, and after that…I don’t know.”

 

McCoy shows up at her quarters with a stack of PADDs. “Anyone else?”

Nyota shakes her head. “It’s just the two of us. I didn’t want too many people…well. I didn’t want too many people.”

He nods. “Have you told anyone?”

“Spock, Scotty, and Pavel. There’s a fifty/fifty chance that Pavel told Sulu.”

“Alright then.” He sets the PADDs on her desk and pulls up a chair. “Let’s get busy.”

 

Scotty shows up at her door while she and the doctor are debating care facilities. His face reddens when he sees the doctor.

McCoy levers himself to his feet. “I’m going for a snack.”

“I needed to talk to you.” Scotty says once he’s gone, pulling on his sleeves.

Nyota narrows her eyes in suspicion. “About what?”

He kisses her. They bump noses; his face is sweaty. He touches her carefully, like she’s going to break. She pulls him closer, hands firm against his back.

By the time this kiss breaks, his hands are cupping the back of her head.

“You timing sucks.”

He snorts. She takes in his face, the shape of his nose. She doesn’t want to forget this.

He kisses her again. “Is that a no?”

She smiles a little. “That’s me wondering why you did this now.”

“I’ve wasted enough time dithering,” he says. “It was now or never.”

 

“What did I walk in on?” he asks later, while McCoy takes a suspiciously long time to return. They’re curled together on her bed, on top of the covers.

Nyota looks at the table, with its messy stack of PADDs. “Planning. McCoy and I were taking a look at my options.” She looks at their clasped hands. “Assisted suicide is one of them.”

Scotty takes a deep breath. “What exactly is going to happen?”

Nyota reflects on the list McCoy gave her. “Memory loss, blackouts, seizures. Loss of motor control. After a while, I won’t be able to talk or understand when someone speaks to me.” Nyota’s voice breaks, and Scotty’s hands grip tighter. “After that, either it kills me or….” She meets his eyes. “Second thoughts?”

“Kicking meself for not doing this sooner.” His voice is thick with whatever he’s holding in. “I’ve been working up the courage to kiss you for months.”

“I don’t know how long I’ve got,” she says, needing him to understand. “It could be just a couple of months.”

“An’ I plan t’spend those months with you.” Scotty leans in to kiss her forehead. “You cannae talk me out of this, Nyota.”

 

She wakes, briefly, to McCoy gathering the PADDs he’d left on her desk. Scotty’s legs are tangled in hers. It feels like there’s a bomb strapped to her neck, counting down; she’s not sure she wants another person caught in the crossfire.

She sits and listens to Scotty’s loud snores, to McCoy carefully cleaning up the mess on her desk. She soaks in the feel of Scotty’s fingers against her own, the warmth radiating across the small space between them.

She wants this. Despite herself, she wants.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the hc_bingo prompt “major illness”, and partly inspired by [ this](http://community.livejournal.com/st_xi_kink_meme/14468.html?thread=14319492#t14319492) kink meme prompt.  
> ~741 words


	2. A Matter of Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tapes and hyposprays can only buy her so much time.

  
Rather than a noisy alarm, Nyota wakes up to her quarters gradually brightening. It takes her a minute to remember whose breath is tickling her neck, but when she does, she smiles. She rolls over to look Scotty in the eyes. “Good morning.”

“Mmm. Morning.” He gives her a chaste kiss. “How are you feeling?”

“Dr. McCoy’s mystery hypospray is amazing,” she says, stretching. There’s an unpleasant twinge in her hip and her arm is numb on one side, but this is the best she’s felt in days, and even better: “I actually remember coming back to my quarters last night.”

“And ye didna scream when ye saw me in bed,” Scotty adds.

“That, I don’t remember.”

“It was weeks ago; I wish _I_ didn’t remember.” He nuzzles the patch of skin above her right breast. “What d’ye want to do first? Take your medicine or take a shower?”

“That depends. Do I get a spoonful of sugar to wash it down?”

Scotty smirks. He reaches past her to grab the hypospray from the nightstand, catching her lips with his as he does so. He rolls her over onto her back, hypo in one hand, holding himself above her with the other. “Where?”

“Neck,” she says, and hisses at the bite of the needle. Scotty kisses the injection site, then sucks his way down her shoulder. “Shit, have I taken my birth control yet?”

“Last week,” Scotty says, “and I took mine.”

Nyota forgets her next question, but it’s a normal forgetting. She remembers Scotty, and she remembers their relationship, and if there’s anything important that Scotty can’t tell her, she’s already made a recording for herself.

She listens to her recording while she brushes her teeth. She has the volume turned up so she can hear it over the sound of Scotty’s piss hitting the inside of the toilet; she can’t help shaking out her right arm the whole time, trying to get the feeling back.

“Does it hurt?” Scotty asks.

She shakes her head and spits into the sink.

 

She doesn’t remember getting dressed, but she does remember their task for the day. She keeps her recording with her, just in case.

It isn’t so bad; she’s still fit for duty, with Dr. McCoy’s help.

She hasn’t forgotten the time for their rendezvous with the _Ulysses_ , and she tries to contact them when they’re late.

They end up having to rescue them from the Romulans. Nyota can’t exactly remember how that ends; she thinks she missed lunch while she was on the bridge.

“Spock walked you here,” Dr. McCoy says, when he sees her startled face in sickbay. “You were feeling dizzy.”

“Oh,” she says. What else can she say? “What happened to the Ulysses?”

“We lost the ship itself, but most of the crew made it out alright; we just dropped them off at Starbase Five.” He frowns at his tricorder. “I’ve made an adjustment to your medication, and I need you to start taking it three times a day; you had a seizure, earlier.”

“Did I have to leave the bridge?”

The doctor glares at her, but he does answer. “You didn’t come down here until we were on our way to the starbase.”

Nyota slumps in relief.

McCoy is giving her all the time he can, but they both know they’re fighting losing battle. Eventually, Nyota will have to go on permanent medical leave. Eventually, there will be nothing more McCoy can do to help her.

The sickbay doors slide open.

Scotty waves at her, wearing a plasma burn and a sheepish expression.

Nyota can’t help but smile.

McCoy is waiting in front of her eyebrows raised.

Nyota nods at him. “Tell me what you need me to do.”  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the h/c bingo prompt “amnesia”.


End file.
